Republicans have returned to government-by-hostage-taking: vote our way or the kids get it! As Republicans race to come up with a plan to avoid a government shutdown this weekend, their self-induced chaos resembles last week, when they tried to pass a reauthorization of the FISA Amendment Act in the U.S. House after Donald Trump unleashed chaos by tweeting against his own bill. That legislation, which allows for warrantless surveillance of Americans phone calls and emails, ultimately passed both the House and Senate with the help of Democrats, and now heads to Trump's desk to be signed. On Thursday, Trump did it again, tweeting against a GOP short-term spending bill to keep the government open which included reauthorization of the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP) in hopes of enticing Democrats to help them avoid a full government shutdown as of midnight Friday. So far, Dems don't seem to be buying it, and appear unwilling to help Republicans out of this jam without the inclusion of a fix to the Deferred Action on Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, the Obama-era protection against deportation of some 800,000 children of immigrants that Trump reversed. Republicans refuse a fix to DACA in the short-term measure; Dems say they won't support such a bill unless DACA is included. In other words, the children helped by both CHIP and DACA are now being held as hostages by the Republican Party. Then, after Donald Trump's fake "Fake News" awards face-plant on Wednesday night, we have a few real "Fake News" awards to offer, as we reach the end of Trump's agonizingly long first year in office. Plus Desi Doyen with the latest 'Green News Report', including bad news out of China, good news out of the Detroit Auto Show and McDonald's, and some late-breaking news from NOAA and NASA on the record heat of 2017, as man-made global warming continues apace in the new year...